Estaban Rodriguez's In Bloom is an exquisite array of lyrical poetry.&nbsp; The title poem, for example, takes us through a catalogue of images, beautifully phrased, of family members who "lent themselves to a pendulum of trumpets, / accordians, drums, guitars, and lyrics that taught us" Spanish and solitariness, the disenchantment.&nbsp; Yet, "a song / we knew would suddenly come on, give us every reason / to bob our heads, sing along" even if we didn't understand the message.&nbsp; Rodriguez can take us to "Gomorrah" and "Golgotha," and lead us to a prayer that says "praise be . . . luck--regardless / of circumstances, conditions--was something / that could always be repeated."

In Bloom

Literature & Fiction

Rodríguez, Esteban

Poetry

Stephen F. Austin University Press

A traditional game of chance popular in Mexico and in Mexican American culture, Lotería is poetically rendered in Esteban Rodríguez's eighth collection, with each poem revolving around one of the fifty-four cards. Using the image presented as a catalyst for exploration and self-reflection, Rodríguez unveils the familial journey between two countries and cultures through both a surreal and narrative lens. Here, a mother unearths a severed hand in the desert. A father discovers his heart among a heap of discarded items. And at one point, the speaker--toggling between his role as witness and son--finds himself in a canoe on a river contemplating the meaning behind an authentic experience. Lyrical, insightful, and honestly engaging, Lotería sheds light on a world that doesn't so easily reveal itself, adding to Rodríguez's prolific and important oeuvre. The Sabine Series in Literature

Lotería: Poems (The Sabine Series in Literature)

Texas Review Press

In this stunning collection of poems, Rodriguez finds the extraordinary in the day-to-day mundane, our wounded and worn bodies, the inconsequential rituals of our lives. In his talented hands, all ordinary bodies are allowed grace and beauty. Always moving, these poems are lived-in monuments to the sometimes painful, sometimes joyful beauty of living. 
- Chole N. Clark, author of Collective Gravities\nIn "Ordinary Bodies," Rodriguez's intriguing examination of the faded, calloused, and broken, leads to a higher empathy (without romanticizing) and an embracing of the ordinary people and moments of his barrio, family, and self. Through an accessible yet intricate verse, Rodriguez takes us into his first-generation, working-class, Mexican American barrio and shows us another side of the American reality and dream; a world of blue-collar jobs, overbearing moms, a beer on the couch: a world of our own. This is a book to be read in one feverish sitting, not just because of its approachability and palabra, but because of its flowing energía, charm, and wisdom. 
- Jose Hernandez Diaz, author of The Fire Eater

Ordinary Bodies

Word West LLC

Set along the U.S.-Mexico border, Dusk & Dust introduces the voice of a “boy straddled on the valley of two geographies.” With a keen eye, gentle humor, and great empathy, Esteban Rodríguez’s debut collection explores the lives of the generations who have made their homes in a landscape too often neglected and forgotten. Like the region they portray—relentless, unsympathetic, singed with uncertainty—these poems are marked with a visceral beauty. The aroma of cattle mingles with steaming tamales, and carnival organs play behind telenovelas in this richly conjured and mercurial world. Through the eyes of his luchador mask, with a foot planted firmly on either side of the fence, the young speaker grapples with a host of cultural and familial expectations, a tenuous grasp on his family’s language, and his own burgeoning identity. Funny and poignant, Dusk & Dust lays out a labyrinth of cultural expectations, and, with a voice as clear as it is unique, illuminates a world that seeks to be remembered and lived.LA PULGA Sunday morning strolls along the frontage road like a censer-swinging priest, scrapes its sunlight against the corroded chain-link fence, between the lines of traffic overflowing from the entrance, where I already taste the scent of wet cilantro, grilled onions, mixed meat, and eggs sizzled in a haze of dust-shuffled heat; in a blanket of black exhaust crawling across the pot-hole-riddled parking lot, and through the rows of sunburned cars nudging each other like buzzards on a corpse they’ve yet to eat. I endure my grandfather’s crooked parking, the constant honking, the backseat acoustics of thin music sprinkled in the air, those far-off plastic speakers blaring songs with unpredictable trumpets,  and Spanish gritos slapped against my English-only ears…. 

Dusk & Dust

Hub City Press

In Esteban Rodríguez’s debut essay collection Before the Earth Devours Us, a young boy emerges from the valley of childhood memories, curious and seeking to understand a world that is violent, uncertain, and as full of loss as it is of life from the people who inhabit it. Here, the pages unfurl with uncles engaged in physical conflict; dogs roam neighborhoods and alleyways; a dead bird is used as a play object; and our protagonist, through observation and conflict of his own, begins to make sense of the impact he and his body have on others. Lyrical, engaging, and always honest, Rodríguez’s memorable collection reminds us that the past is never beyond language’s redemption.

Before the Earth Devours Us

Biographies & Memoirs

Memoirs

Split/Lip Press

Fisica Re-Creativa (Spanish Edition)

Reference

Gil, Salvador

Foreign Language Study & Reference

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